scribbling
by Maristela Freesia
Summary: History class can bore even Mara Jaffray.


**scribbling**

There are many things Jerome Clark was good at. None of these things had anything to do with taking notes or remembering when tests are.

So, as was typical for him, as soon as he found out about the history test, he pounded up the stairs and ran into Patricia and Mara's room. "Mara, I need to borrow your history notes!"

Without even so much as looking up from her book, Mara's hand dived into her bag and pulled out a notebook. She took a moment to make sure it was the right notebook- the one with the blue cover- and then held it out, going back to the book she was reading.

Jerome ran into his room, ready to do some extremely-last-minute history lesson cramming, and settled onto his bed. He'd borrowed most of Mara's notes before, but he was pretty sure that he hadn't needed the ones from history before. As such, nothing could prepare him for what happened when he opened the notebook.

It was not that they were so neat and orderly, although they were.

It was not the lines and lines of perfectly neat writing, although those were there.

No, both of those were typical for Mara's notes. What was not typical was the accumulation of scribbles around the edges of the pages.

Honestly, it was a bit shocking for Jerome to find that Mara had probably gotten bored enough in class to doodle at all, let alone enough to practically cover the page. And if this was just the first page, it was an almost-frightening thought as to what else there was.

Rather than actually study the notes, he chose to thumb through the pages, mildly interested by the stories that the pictures told. In the beginning, there were just little pictures, flowers and smiley faces, and occasionally something strangely elaborate that proved that she was really bored that day. The day that Mick and Amber broke up was marked by, of all things, a page or two of notes that Amber and Mara had written to each other, in her history notebook.

Frustratingly enough, he could also see the days where Mick and Mara were together, distinctly marked by hearts with "MC + MJ" written in them, and the days when they weren't, distinctly marked by similar hearts with slashes through them. The days when she was pining after him when he wouldn't talk to her were punctuated by sad faces.

The days where the class rep elections were coming up were marked by sketches of posters reading "Vote Mara", and the prom was recognized by doodles of flowers, dresses, corsages, and posters for promoting it. It was actually interesting to see the story of the last term told by innocent eyes, eyes that had never seen Rufus Zeno or the Cup of Ankh. It made Jerome want to smile.

Then he turned the page, and rolled his eyes at the sight of more hearts. It was so moony of her, to keep writing her and Mick's initials over and over and over.

But what he really saw gave him a moment of pause. While all the hearts on the page had Mara's "MJ" in them, none of the hearts seemed to have the initials the "MC" for Mick in them. In fact, upon closer inspection, it rather seemed as though all the hearts read JC.

There was a single moment where Jerome could do nothing but stare at the page. _JC_. It took just that moment for him to wonder who JC was, why she was thinking about JC instead of her _boyfriend,_ and then the realization slammed into him with the force of a train.

_JC._

As in, _Jerome Clark._

JC + MC was him and Mara.

There was another moment where the realization that Mara had been writing his and her initials in a heart left him dumbfounded, but that moment passed, and Jerome found himself wanting to laugh. After all this time of not knowing, he finally had the confirmation that Mara liked him "like that" too.

Of course, he understood Mara well enough to know that outright confessing to having read the scribbles on the page would probably embarrass her. There had to be a good way to let her know he saw...

It was time for the history test.

Making the snap-decision to do a bit of last-minute studying, Mara opened her history notes and started thumbing through, trying to absorb everything she'd written as quickly as she could. Finally, she got to the end, and her breath caught in her throat.

The page. The one page where she'd written all the hearts with Jerome's initials in them... and then given the notebook with that same page _to him._ That was so stupid of her! How could she do that?

Then something caught her eye. Something written in red pen- which Mara never used- in the corner of that page. She looked closely at it, trying to figure out what it was.

The bright red pen said, in a messier scrawl than her own, "JC + MJ" in a heart, with the word "too" next to it.

Looking up in surprise, Mara had a fleeting moment of _Who wrote this?_ but then looked over at Jerome. He winked and grinned.

All Mara could do was smile back.

**Jara makes me want to write fluff. Hence this. But don't worry, I've got something nice and dark coming pretty soon... well, anyways, we've all doodled in our notebooks at one point. I can totally see Mara doing that. And the ending is kind of vague-ish on purpose. So, if you review, it means the world to me, so could you please? Thanks for reading! Love, Mari!**


End file.
